The Day of Battle

The War in Sicily and Italy, 1943-1944

By: Rick Atkinson

Narrated by: Jonathan Davis

Length: 32 hrs and 41 mins

Publisher's summary

In An Army at Dawn - winner of the Pulitzer Prize - Rick Atkinson provided a dramatic and authoritative history of the Allied triumph in North Africa. Now, in The Day of Battle, he follows the American and British armies as they invade Sicily in July 1943, attack Italy two months later, and then fight their way, mile by bloody mile, north toward Rome.

The Italian campaign's outcome was never certain; in fact, President Roosevelt, Prime Minister Churchill, and their military advisors bitterly debated whether an invasion of the so-called soft underbelly of Europe was even wise. But once underway, the commitment to liberate Italy from the Nazis never wavered, despite the agonizing price. The battles at Salerno, Anzio, the Rapido River, and Cassino were particularly ferocious and lethal, yet as the months passed, the Allied forces continued to drive the Germans up the Italian peninsula. Led by Lieutenant General Mark W. Clark, among the war's most complex and controversial commanders, American troops became increasingly determined and proficient. With the liberation of Rome in June 1944, ultimate victory in Europe at last began to seem inevitable.

Drawing on extensive new material from a wide array of primary sources, and written with great drama and flair, The Day of Battle is narrative history of the first rank.

©2007 Rick Atkinson (P)2013 Simon & Schuster

Puts everything in context

Where does The Day of Battle rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

In the top ten books I have listened to. Usually, military history is tough to listen to. Too many places and names. This was well written, and well read, and because I had a significant background in the topic it was easy to follow.

If you are like me and watched movies like Patton and The Big Red One as a kid, this book and its predecessor puts it all in context. For military enthusiast, this book is a must.

A great learning experience!

Great listen! So much to learn about this front of WW II. Love the way the author brings in stories of all the troops, not just the officers!! Ready for Europe now!

Great and harrowing story...

Compelling stories and great research by Rick Atkinson. The narration in this book wasn't as good as the others in the Liberation Trilogy.

The Tragic Side show

Much has been said about how Germany would never be defeated by attacking Italy and what a shame that Churchill had such influence on the decisions to go there. What Atkinson shows here is how the Germans were so invested and saving Italy and no one had expected this the savagery is probably more startling than anything else the Winter campaign particularly.

Detailed from military strategy - logistics - emotions

It was a wonderful book from Sicily to Rome to VE Day
Highly recommended better than any book on the Italian campaign I’ve ever heard of.

Best non fiction book I have ever read!

The Liberation Trilogy is the best non fiction I have read. It gives equal time to what the allied high command is experiencing, as well as what the guys on the front lines are experiencing. The book gives so much detail into what daily life was like for a grunt, as well as not sugar coating the horror they all experienced. In addition, Atkinson will also throw in many interesting asides as to the history of the place where the battle is being fought. As this book takes place in Italy, there are many ancient battle grounds, spots where ancient monsters were slain, Roman orgies, and important early Christian Church locations.

Listen to this book! You will laugh learn and cry!

An excellent history of an important campaign

What did you love best about The Day of Battle?

My father (J. Nelson Howard, Texas A&M class of 1944) participated in the events in this book, first with the 36th Division and latter with the 88th Division. I have a letter he wrote home on June 5, 1944 from Rome. The day after he was one of the first GI's into Rome.

Dad didn't talk a lot about his time Italy, but I know he hated Mark Clark, as did his Aggie friends.

I learned some of the reasons why from this book, and also heard Clark's side of the story.

What was one of the most memorable moments of The Day of Battle?

Reading about the 36th and 88th Divisions.

What about Jonathan Davis’s performance did you like?

Davis's performance was excellent. His Italian was excellent. His German, British, and French accents were a tad off, but at least he didn't overdo them.

Overall production value of this recording was excellent, there were no dropouts, changing speeds and volumes, or repeated clips.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

It's a long book, but well structured to keep one's interest high.

highly recommend

Excellent book; narrator has some dodgy pronunciation and his "quotation voice" gets kind of annoying, but doesn't detract too much from an otherwise first rate book.

Awful Narrator, Fabulous book

What did you like best about The Day of Battle? What did you like least?

I've never written a review on here before but I had to say something about the joker narrating this book. As a fan of historical non-fiction I prefer there to be some accuracy in the treatment of the text by the narrator. Jonathan Davis fails at this, and he does so with gusto.

His inability to pronounce words (some quite simple if you know the subject matter) is grating, and frankly does a disservice to an otherwise spectacular entry in the library of modern histories on World War 2. For example:

The Somme: he pronounces it as "some"
Passchendaele: "Passion-dolly"
Ira Eaker: "Acre"
La Marseillaise: The "Mar-sally"

And these are just of few examples of his butchery of words commonplace in the vocabulary of World War 2 history.

Also laughable was the narrators attempt to any accent that wasn't some form of English, American or Anzac. No matter the other nationality (French, Polish what have you) they came off as German. Apparently, once the Germans occupy your country you start sounding like them according to this narrator.

The book itself of course is fabulous and Rick Atkinson is a towering voice in accessible modern military history.

How did the narrator detract from the book?

His contempt for the text was obvious in his inability to research even the simplest background of what he was reading beforehand. Apparenlty if you're not American, English or ANZAC you sound like a German as apparently the French, Polish, Russians, Indians all came across with a German accent.

If this book were a movie would you go see it?

Yes! Though it would make a better HBO mini-series

Any additional comments?

Read the book.

Italy We must never forget the lessons and the sacrifice

Those who demand American investment of human capital in war need to read the words of those who pay that bill in blood